Andreessen Horowitz Adds Another General Partner

The venture-capital firm, which has been on an investment tear recently by putting money into everything from Twitter to Box.net, said it has brought on a new general partner, former IronPort CEO Scott Weiss. Weiss is the firm’s fourth general partner; the other three are Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz and John O’Farrell.

Scott Weiss

The move comes as Andreessen Horowitz beefs up its ranks to invest its second fund, a $650 million vehicle that it raised late last year. The firm has been one of the few to be able to raise money quickly, even as much of the rest of the venture industry struggles to raise new cash.

Weiss was previously an executive at Hotmail before founding security technology company IronPort in 2000. IronPort was acquired by Cisco in 2007 for $830 million. Weiss said he stayed at Cisco until about 18 months ago, and since then has been doing some angel investing.

Weiss added that he met the people at Andreessen Horowitz about six months ago. Horowitz said the firm was looking to add a general partner who has previously founded and built a company, and someone who could pick strong companies and work well with entrepreneurs. Weiss, 45 years old, officially starts at the firm on March 28, but is already spending several days a week at the office.

Weiss said he will have a broad purview to look at consumer and enterprise technology across the early-stage to late-stage spectrum.